It’s not just the color of your eyes, or your gregarious manner that you may pass along to your kids and their kids. What you eat, or don’t eat, can get passed on to your offspring, too—and many generations into the future. But researchers are just b

Novelist John Larison does not have an incrementalist view of change. His latest novel The Ancients suggests that the very fabric and foundation of a society can become so poisoned that it cannot solve its own problems in any lasting way without tear

In the Disney animated film 101 Dalmatians, there’s an amusing sequence in which lookalike pairs of people and their dogs parade across the screen, the resemblances between human and canine in both shape and facial expression comically exaggerated. I

It’s long been assumed that happiness across the lifespan shows a distinct “U” shape. When we’re young, and in relatively good health, we have high levels of happiness. In mid-life, happiness slumps as people grapple with the demands of adulthood and

As ever, our writers and scientists this year took you to places where splendor and surprise abound, and shaped their discoveries into stories that allow you to experience the world anew. Enjoy these passages below. “There’s information,” the librari

“I work with bait fishing, and I was at the beach on my way to work when the tsunami hit. While preparing for the day’s work, I heard some kind of noise. Everyone turned and looked toward the sea. I saw it too. The water came as high as a cloud.” —Ar

At the park near my home in Georgia grows a towering oak tree I often visit at the end of the day, when I feel weary. When I reach it, I run my hands over its rough gray fissured bark. I walk a circle around it, imagining its roots winding through th

In this issue of Nautilus, we bring you a new understanding of kinship—and how it can unite us, ocean waves, and even distant stars. In the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, the Mali tribe has long practiced a valuable skill: building huge families. T

Scattered across the universe are stars that shine subtle hints of a shared ancestry. They might be thousands of light-years apart, almost indistinguishable from other, nearer stars that surround them, but similarities—their ages, their compositions,

On the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, little greenish-brown warblers mate for life—or at least a substantial part of it. Year after year, male and female bring the young chick insects to eat while vigorously defending the nest from skinks or

In the name of sexual selection, male bowerbirds create art. Bowerbirds, a family of 20 species found in New Guinea and Australia, are named for the elaborate structures they create—“bowers,” often made of sticks or grasses, their main evolutionary o

When Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s shoulder earlier this fall, it brought the largest storm surge ever recorded in the area. The storm had formed just four days earlier as a tropical depression, but when it made landfall, it was already a C

Seeing the striking magenta of bougainvillea. Tasting a rich morning latte. Feeling the sharp pain of a needle prick going into your arm. These subjective experiences are the stuff of the mind. What is “doing the experiencing,” the 3-pound chunk of m